h.

MICH. Or while I have hands to smite with.

VERA. Martial law! O God, how easy it is for a king to kill his people
by thousands, but we cannot rid ourselves of one crowned man in Europe!
What is there of awful majesty in these men which makes the hand
unsteady, the dagger treacherous, the pistol-shot harmless? Are they not
men of like passions with ourselves, vulnerable to the same diseases, of
flesh and blood not different from our own? What made Olgiati tremble at
the supreme crisis of that Roman life, [11]and Guido's nerve fail him
when he should have been of iron and of steel? A plague, I say, on these
fools of Naples, Berlin, and Spain![11] Methinks that if I stood face to
face with one of the crowned men my eye would see more clearly, my aim
be more sure, my whole body gain a strength and power that was not my
own! Oh, to think what stands between us and freedom in Europe! a few
old men, wrinkled, feeble, tottering dotards whom a boy could strangle
for a ducat, or a woman stab in a night-time. And these are the things
that keep us from democracy, that keep us from liberty. But now
methinks the brood of men is dead and the dull earth grown sick of
child-bearing, else would no crowned dog pollute God's air by living.

OMNES. Try us! Try us! Try us!

MICH. We shall try thee, too, some day, Vera.

VERA. I pray God thou mayest! Have I not strangled whatever nature is in
me, and shall I not keep my oath?

MICH. (_to PRESIDENT_). Martial law, President! Come, there is no time
to be lost. We have twelve hours yet before us till the council meet.
[12]Twelve hours! One can overthrow a dynasty in less time than
that.[12]

PRES. [13]Ay! or lose one's own head.[13]

(_MICHAEL and the PRESIDENT retire to one corner of the stage and sit
whispering. VERA takes up the proclamation, and reads it to herself;
ALEXIS watches and suddenly rushes up to her._)

ALEX. Vera!

VERA. Alexis, you here! Foolish boy, have I not prayed you to stay away?
All of us here are doomed to die before our time, fated to expiate by
suffering whatever good we do; but you, with your [14]bright boyish
face,[14] you are too young to die yet.

ALEX. One is never too young to die for one's country!

VERA. Why do you come here night after night?

ALEX. Because I love the people.

VERA. But your fellow-students must miss you. Are there no traitors
among them? You know what spies there are in the University here. O
Alexis, you must go! You se